This is Day 22 of 28 Days to Getting Your Sh*t Together. Yesterday, Danny Brown help us spellbound with his post on dying and living. In a decided change of pace, my very funny friend, Ken Moorhead, shares his unique viewpoint on why we should ask for sh*t. You’ll love it. 🙂

Just Ask

Sooo, hi. I’m Ken, and uhh… I’m skipping right into the meat of my post and putting my bio below, because you came here to read some shit and I’d rather get right to that because none of you have any fraking clue who I am. So, hi, I’m Ken, I’m not nearly as important on the internet as everyone else posting in this series, and I’m very pleased to have you read this.

You are a beautiful, marvelous person and I love you.

But… (Now I’m going to punch you in the neck because I can’t write more than a single line of niceness)

You need to start asking for shit. Really asking for shit. Like, “Dude, I need to catch a break, will you throw me some rope?” I’m not talking about favors or quid pro quo, nor is this about walking around like the world owes you. But instead of being shy or humble or apologetic about wanting or needing something from someone, just fraking ask. The worst that will happen is you’re turned down.

It’s well-documented in my workplace that sales is decidedly not one of my skills. But that’s where I started, and I like to think I learned at least one or two things along the way. The lesson that stuck most has been building relationships for a purpose. Conceptually, sales is simple: talk to people. Figure out if they’re interested. Ask why. Ask what they value. Understand the person’s needs and goals, explore together how you can help fulfill those needs and accomplish those goals. If you do this, you earn the right to ask for the business.

Recently I found myself a bit frustrated and weary with my job, and not entirely sure where to turn. I wound up firing off a few emails late one evening to some prominent marketers I was loosely connected with saying, “Hey, I don’t know that I’m looking for anything right now, but do you know anyone who might be interested in me?”

That’s pretty scary and daunting for a twenty-four year old, I won’t lie. But twenty minutes later I had a lunch meeting scheduled with a very interested party. The day after the lunch, I spoke with my boss and came clean to him, “Man, I’m just not happy here right now and it’s really frustrating. What kind of options do we have for redefining my role a bit? I really don’t want to just leave.” A week later and I’m on some projects I really enjoy and am pretty excited with my professional life again.

Both of these instances were really scary for me – reaching out to people I didn’t know that well, who definitely don’t owe me any favors, and asking for what I needed from them. Talking with my boss as a very young professional and asking for what I needed to be a better employee had me pretty nervous as well. It was a bit terrifying, but I knew I had invested in those relationships up enough where I felt I had earned the right to ask for the business.

So!

What’s frustrating you in your life right now? Who can you ask to throw you a rope and help you get your shit together today?

Well, Sarah asked if I’d be game to do a blog post and I agreed – why wouldn’t I? I didn’t realize at the time that I’d be mentioned in the same breath as some really important people – hell, I can’t even get myself a proper headshot. I’m 24 years old and work in operations for Compendium software, where I’m responsible for monitoring and analyzing just about every facet of the business and providing the information that fuels decisions company-wide. I’m also a grad student working on my MBA in marketing and a full-time nerd who loves DC Comics. At the time of this post I’m working on ways to automate some really sophisticated web analytics reports to understand our software and give our clients better insights, and in my free time (dear God I can’t believe this is what I’m doing in my free time) I’m hacking together different ways to more effectively target Twitter users and segment individual Twitter networks for marketing purposes. You can email me at [email protected] or follow me on The Twitter @kenmoorhead.